16-letter words that end in s
- arteriosclerosis — Arteriosclerosis is a medical condition in which the walls of your arteries become hard and thick, so your blood cannot flow through them properly.
- asparagus spears — the succulent young shoots of Asparagus officinalis, which may be cooked and eaten
- assessment tests — tests that form part of the regular assessment of students' knowledge and learning
- assigned numbers — (standard) The RFC STD 2 documenting the currently assigned values from several series of numbers used in network protocol implementations. This RFC is updated periodically and, in any case, current information can be obtained from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). If you are developing a protocol or application that will require the use of a link, socket, port, protocol, etc., you should contact the IANA to receive a number assignment.
- assimilationists — Plural form of assimilationist.
- auckland islands — a group of six uninhabited islands, south of New Zealand. Area: 611 sq km (234 sq miles)
- audience figures — the number of people regularly watching a television programme or listening to a radio programme
- audiovisual aids — training or educational materials directed at both the sense of hearing and the sense of sight; films, recordings, photographs, etc., used in classroom instruction, library collections, or the like.
- aulnay-sous-bois — a town in N central France, a suburb NE of Paris.
- aurora australis — the aurora seen around the South Pole
- australian rules — a game resembling rugby football, played in Australia between teams of 18 men each on an oval pitch, with a ball resembling a large rugby ball. Players attempt to kick the ball between posts (without crossbars) at either end of the pitch, scoring six points for a goal (between the two main posts) and one point for a behind (between either of two outer posts and the main posts). They may punch or kick the ball and run with it provided that they bounce it every ten yards
- australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
- autotransformers — Plural form of autotransformer.
- autotransfusions — Plural form of autotransfusion.
- babbage, charles — Charles Babbage
- bachelor of arts — a degree conferred on a person who has successfully completed his or her undergraduate studies, usually in a branch of the liberal arts or humanities
- bachelor-at-arms — bachelor (def 4).
- balearic islands — a group of islands in the W Mediterranean, consisting of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Cabrera, and 11 islets: a province of Spain. Capital: Palma, on Majorca. Pop: 1 071 500 (2003 est). Area: 5012 sq km (1935 sq miles)
- balkan mountains — a mountain range extending across Bulgaria from the Black Sea to the eastern border. Highest peak: Mount Botev, 2376 m (7793 ft)
- banana republics — any of the small countries in the tropics, especially in the Western Hemisphere, whose economies are largely dependent on fruit exports, tourism, and foreign investors.
- bare necessities — only the essentials
- barrier of ideas — the representations of objects which certain accounts of perception interpose between the objects themselves and our awareness of them, so that, as critics argue, we can never know whether there is in reality anything which resembles our perceptions
- bartholomeu dias — Bartholomeu [bahr-too-loo-me-oo] /ˌbɑr tʊ lʊˈmɛ ʊ/ (Show IPA), c1450–1500, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope.
- basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
- bbn technologies — (company) A company, originally known as Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. BBN were awarded the original contract to build the ARPANET and have been extensively involved in Internet development. They are responsible for managing NNSC, CSNET, and NEARnet. The language LOGO was developed at BBN, as was the BBN Butterfly supercomputer.
- be in one's cups — If someone is in their cups, they are drunk.
- be in sb's shoes — If you talk about being in someone's shoes, you talk about what you would do or how you would feel if you were in their situation.
- bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
- beefsteak fungus — an edible reddish bracket fungus, Fistulina hepatica, that grows esp on oak trees and oozes a bloodlike juice
- behind the times — You can use the times to refer to the present time and to modern fashions, tastes, and developments. For example, if you say that someone keeps up with the times, you mean they are fashionable or aware of modern developments. If you say they are behind the times, you mean they are unfashionable or not aware of them.
- belgian malinois — one of a Belgian breed of medium-sized dogs having a short coat, tan to dark brown in color, a black mask, and erect ears, bred originally as a sheepherding dog.
- bessemer process — (formerly) a process for producing steel by blowing air through molten pig iron at about 1250°C in a Bessemer converter: silicon, manganese, and phosphorus impurities are removed and the carbon content is controlled
- big bag of pages — (BIBOP) Where data objects are tagged with some kind of descriptor (giving their size or type for example) memory can be saved by storing objects with the same descriptor in one "page" of memory. The most significant bits of an object's address are used as the BIBOP page number. This is looked up in a BIBOP table to find the descriptor for all objects in that page. This idea is similar to the "zones" used in some Lisp systems (e.g. LeLisp).
- biliary calculus — an abnormal stonelike mass, usually of cholesterol, formed in the gallbladder or bile passages.
- birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
- bite one's nails — to chew off the ends of one's fingernails
- blow one's lines — (of the wind or air) to be in motion.
- board of pardons — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole or discretionary mandatory supervision and recommends pardons
- boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
- bodily functions — physical processes such as urination and defecation
- bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
- book of business — A company's or agent's book of business is the total of all insurance accounts written by them.
- brave west winds — the strong west and west-northwest winds blowing between latitudes 40° S and 60° S.
- bright-blindness — blindness occurring in sheep grazing pastures heavily infested with bracken
- british honduras — Belize
- brittle diabetes — uncontrolled insulin disorder
- brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
- budgie smugglers — men's close-fitting swimming trunks
- bullying tactics — the use of intimidation to gain one's objective
- bundle of nerves — a very nervous person